wheel loaders

[D.R. Cattle]

Any you guys spend any time with front end loaders? Thinking about messing around with some land clearing ventures down here. Spent several days on rented machines but not a guru by any means, but I've spent 1000's of hours on forklifts which are very similar. They were JD544's, and I was quite fond of them. Same size machine in CAT would be about 938 I suppose. Have no feedback on the JAP models like Komatsu. Any opinions/suggestions?

 

[TheBullLady]

Although I'm not "a guy".. we have a loader and dozer. Hubby builds tanks and clears land / fencelines here in his "spare time". We've got a Cat 955 loader that's really handy, and a 16B Fiat dozer.

If you're going to be in rough ground or a lot of mesquite, track is the only way to go! Tires for wheel loaders are $$. Like anything else, you need to get a machine and spend some hours on it to get good at it. It's actually fun!

 

[D.R. Cattle]

955 is a pretty good sized machine. Was considering something a little smaller and more agile.

 

[Subsoil]

D.R. - Have you considered a used skidder. If you are just using it for pushing brush, you could put a rake on the front and do a pretty good job and I'm sure it would be cheaper than a loader because not as many people have a use for them. If you're wanting to use the bucket for dirt work, then your stuck needing a loader. However, I think the skidder would be superior to a dozer for some pushing jobs around the place because it's lots faster.

 

[D.R. Cattle]

Need to have the bucket option. I'm even considering a HD brush cutter or shredder as an implement.